Adventure Video Games: Insights from a Player and the Realms of Puzzle Addiction

Adventure games have always had a very bad reputation in the minds of today's true gamers. While shooters, RPG's, MMO's and so forth have managed to corner the market for video gaming entertainment in this new era. With this being the case, the adventure game has managed to keep a somewhat 'cult' following, mainly for the reason that the demand is still there for them. The question that I ask is why is this so?

Being an adventure gamer since my mid - twenties, I had never imagined how much that games of this style could enthrall me so. When I picked up my first game, 'Indigo Prophecy', it had been actually at the suggestion of my wife that we give the game a try after I had read about it in an issue of 'Electronic Gaming Monthly'. When I first looked at it, I wasn't exactly sure why I was so interested. It was apparent that there was a blood and gore factor that had been attached to it, as well as some sexual themes and strong violence, but it still had me wanting more. I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know what world I was going to be entering. I wanted to understand this prophecy and what it was going to fortell for the future of this world.

After trying desperately to get a copy at every possible retailer that I could find in the city for nearly a week, we managed to finally get our hands on a copy and immediately rushed home to put it into our Xbox. Once the first cut-scene had finished playing, I knew immediately that I was going to be hooked after I noticed that the character I was playing (* a bank security specialist named Max) was found in a bathroom of a local diner in a trance-like state, covered in blood and next to a dead body. After that, I just had to figure out what happened next. Soon, I was finding myself receiving psychic visions, making choices that no average human being would be thinking of doing just in order to stay alive and outrun the police. I entered mysterious pools of light, escaped insane asylums, walked a tighrope to rescue the woman I loved. I was doing things that I could have only dreamed of, from fighting ancient sorcerers and reliving my past, only later to find that that there were a great many deep and dark secrets that had been kept from me since my youth. Finally, with the choice of eight possible endings to choose from, that made the journey all that much sweeter.

Adventure games, as most people may or may not know, are more than just games, but rather more to the fact, computerized interactive experiences where it may require more than simply looking for weapon upgrades or walking to new towns and fighting monsters. Most developers, from my own experience, base many of their games on a story-driven interface, where you simply point-and-click, or perhaps you may have to manipulate an enviornment or place inventory pieces together to make things work. In order to do this, this may require something more than pulling a trigger. Adventure games are also based highly on logic and intuition, where the player actually has to use their mind in order to figure out the next approach, and without the presence of some sort of weapon, magic item, or such, this has a nasty tendency of turning most players off. The reason being that there is no instant gratification. There is no 'cool, I bagged another alien with my zapper gun and now I found the next greatest one, and this one will allow me to blow them to pieces!' Instead, what happens is the story is moved along, and with that, a new set of challenges that have to be overcome.Again, a thing that mainstream players, critics, and magazine editors tend to frown very highly upon, for the fact that they simply are so used to the mainstream. It's no different than eating a pizza every night of the week, and not understanding that the flavor is always going to be the same. It's still good, but it lacks something. With this, adventure games have not managed to come into the spotlight due to the reason that there are those that just do not know there are other things to play other than the same typical fare.

It is my opinion that adventure games have not been given the respect by the gaming community because they are so story-based, and they consider the ineractivity in such styles of games to be minimal. Perhaps that, and maybe because there is just simply so much guess work that comes with playing these games that there is no way to feel that sense of satisfaction that comes from something such as a first-person shooter. But, where they fail to see the satisfaction is that humanity as a whole likes to feel that they have accomplished something, and adventure games can do that if given the chance.

In order for to truly understand what it is to be an adventure gamer and to help others to understand what this type of genre can actualy be like, it will require a sense of open-mindedness when it comes to actual gameplay. It is true that there has not been as much innovation in the field of adventure gaming since 'Indigo Prophecy', but there is still much more room for improvement in order to bring these fulfilling programs into a new light.

I can only wait for what the developers have in store for us next. Maybe, 'Indigo Prophecy 2'?